Transgression- Saproxylic Organism

These indexical, analogue photographs were taken in 2018 in a part of the forest in Kop van Schouwen, a nature reserve in the Netherlands. They were printed in 2019 by Michael Windig on barite paper, in Purmerend. The sensorial qualities of the print invite the viewer to conceptualize this photograph as a sensorial assemblage, a coming-together of various entities. Examples of the entities that form this assemblage are walking in the woods, the time-span of thinking and taking the photograph, the weather, the light, the Canon Eos 300, the film, the saproxylic organism.

The saproxylic organism lives on and off a dead tree. It transgresses its own borders and that of the tree. This fusion of materials can be seen as abject and entropic. Abject, in how bodies are experienced that do not stay within their borders. Entropic, as this transgression of the border between tree and the saproxylic organism leads eventually to dissolving separations of space between tree and mushroom, and into chaos. All these entities form the assemblage, that is the photograph.

Transgression was exhibited at the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition 2020, and featured in Gallery VII.